PortaPro has three ways to take a customer record out of your day-to-day
lists, and they do very different things. If you are unsure, choose Make
Inactive: nothing is lost and it can be undone at any time.
| Make Inactive | Delete | Merge | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Use when | You no longer work with the customer but want the records | The record is a duplicate, a test or a mistake | Two or more records are the same customer |
| History | Kept exactly as it was | Removed for good after 30 days | Moved onto the record you keep |
| Allowed with invoices or payments | Yes | No, refused | Yes |
| Undo | Reactivate, any time | Restore, within 30 days | Undo merge in Merge History |
| Who can do it | Admins | Admins | Office staff (undo: admins) |
The ⓘ beside the Delete button in the Customer Hub and in both delete
dialogs explains the difference in the app.
Make a customer inactive
Three ways:
its financial history, the dialog offers Make Inactive instead.
The dialog asks for a Reason (required): Went with another company,
Closed or sold the business, Seasonal (will be back), No longer ordering,
Non-payment / credit risk, Bad experience / ended on poor terms, Duplicate or
data cleanup, or Other. The reason feeds your "why customers leave"
reporting and win-back groups in Marketing. You can add a Note
(optional), and tick Also block all future contact to set Do Not
Contact (no marketing email, no texts, no calls) at the same time.
What happens:
pickers across the app, and appears in the Inactive view. Typing a
search in the Customer Hub still finds them, marked Inactive.
monthly statements, overdue reminders and automatic resends, service
reminders, quote-expiration reminders and review requests are skipped,
late fees don't accrue, and marketing campaigns and sequences leave them
out. An invoice for an inactive customer won't send.
Making a customer inactive does not pause their sites. If they still
have active sites with rate-card lines, pause or close those sites too
(see Customer Sites)
so no more service jobs or cycle drafts are created for them.
Reactivate
Reactivate on the row. This page also tallies why customers left.
The customer returns to your lists straight away.
Delete a customer
Delete is for records that should not exist at all.
profile and choose ⋮ → Delete Customer.
still out).
ticked so your inventory stays right.
Delete N Customers (with the real number) in bulk. Add a reason if
you like.
A customer with financial history can't be deleted. Any invoice,
payment, sent or accepted quote, agreement, recurring invoice or payment
plan blocks it. The dialog reads Cannot delete, has financial history
and offers Make Inactive instead. This matches QuickBooks Online and
Xero, which don't delete a customer with posted transactions.
Deleting also removes the customer's portal access.
The 30-day trash
Deleted customers wait in Deleted Customers (Customer Hub ⋮ →
Deleted Customers, admins only) for 30 days. Each row shows who deleted
it, when, the reason and how many days are left. Click Restore on a row,
or tick several and click Restore N. After 30 days a nightly cleanup
removes them permanently.
Restoring brings the record and its history back, but not units that were
returned to the yard during the delete. Place those again from the site's
map pins.
Merge duplicate customers
Find Duplicates in the Customer Hub header lists groups of customers that
look alike by name, email or phone. Open a group and click Merge These
Customers, or Dismiss a group that isn't a duplicate. You can also
tick two or more customers yourself and click Merge.
The Merge Customers panel:
Recommended.
move (sites, contacts, jobs, invoices, payments and so on). Financial
records are called out.
say), pick the value to keep. Blank fields are filled in for you.
The merge is all or nothing: if anything fails, nothing changes. A record
that would duplicate one the kept customer already has stays with the
original, and the confirmation says how many.
Undo a merge
Customer Hub ⋮ → Merge History (admins only) lists every merge, newest
first. Undo merge puts the merged customers back on your list and returns
every record that moved. Records that already belonged to the kept customer
aren't affected.